Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 eBook

by the excavations of Ballas, Neggadeh and Abydos.
The products of a whole period of Egyptian civilization
which had been misunderstood, and had been used to
support false historical conclusions, fall into their
true place; and our knowledge of the history of Egyptian
culture is carried back not merely a few centuries,
but to a period presenting characteristics different
from the oldest previously known period, but containing
the germs of the later development.

Cairo, Egypt.

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ROSE PSYCHE.

The hybrid Polyantha Rose Psyche is a seedling from
the dwarf Polyantha Rose Golden Fairy, crossed with
the pollen of the Crimson Rambler. Its growth
and habit, though more delicate, much resembles the
Rambler. It is apparently quite hardy, and is
very free flowering, but we fear not perpetual.
The flowers are produced in clusters of from fifteen
to twenty-five, and are 2 to 21/2 inches across when
fully expanded. In the bud stage they are very
pretty and well formed. The color is white, suffused
with salmon-rose and pink, with a yellow base to the
petals. It is a real companion to Crimson Rambler.—­The
Gardeners’ Chronicle.

[Illustration: Rosehybridpolyantha
“Psyche”—­Color, Palepink.]

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SLEEP AND THE THEORIES OF ITS CAUSE.

The theory of the origin of sleep which has gained
the widest credence is the one that attributes it
to anaemia of the brain. It has been shown by
Mosso, and many others, that in men with defects of
the cranial wall the volume of the brain decreases
during sleep. At the same time, the volume of
any limb increases as the peripheral parts of the
body become turgid with blood. In dogs, the brain
has been exposed, and the cortex of that organ has
been observed to become anaemic during sleep.
It is a matter of ordinary observation that in infants,
during sleep, the volume of the brain becomes less,
since the fontanelle is found to sink in. It
has been supposed, but without sufficient evidence
to justify the supposition, that this anaemia of the
brain is the cause and not the sequence of sleep.
The idea behind this supposition has been that, as
the day draws to an end, the circulatory mechanism
becomes fatigued, the vasomotor center exhausted,
the tone of the blood vessels deficient, and the energy
of the heart diminished, and the circulation to the
cerebral arteries lessened. By means of a simple
and accurate instrument (the Hill-Barnard sphygmometer),
with which the pressure in the arteries of man can
be easily reckoned, it has been recently determined
that the arterial pressure falls just as greatly during
bodily rest as during sleep. The ordinary pressure
of the blood in the arteries of young and healthy
men averages 110-120 mm. of mercury. In sleep,